Sooners Escape With Close Win over Oakland

OU nearly gave the game away in the final innings, but held on for a two-run win.

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 12:14 pm

By: News On 6

Sooners Escape With Close Win over Oakland

Originally Published: Feb 25, 2011 6:43 PM CDT

Corey DeMoss
Oklahoma Sports Staff Writer

NORMAN, Okla. – The Oklahoma baseball team withheld a late scare to hold off Oakland 7-5 Friday and remain undefeated on the season.

The Sooners (7-0) jumped out to an early lead with three runs in the second inning with RBIs in three straight at-bats from Jack Mayfield, Eric Ross and Max White. Oakland cut that lead to 3-1 with an RBI single by Todd Durham in the top of the third.

OU scored an unearned run in the fifth and added two more runs in the sixth on RBIs by White and Garrett Buechele to extend the lead to 6-1 and seemingly take control of the game. But Oakland would not go quietly.

Tim Ryan drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the seventh, and Oakland came up with a big inning in the eighth. Facing his last batter of the day, pitcher Anthony Collazo committed an error that loaded the bases for Oakland with nobody out.

D.J. Jarrad took advantage with a two-run single, and another run scored in the next at-bat after OU’s second error of the inning. That run cut the lead to 6-5, and Oakland still had two runners on base with nobody out.

OU pitcher Tyson Seng induced a short fly ball to get the first out of the inning, and the Sooners then threw out Jarrad trying to steal third for the second out. Seng followed by striking out Durham to end the threat.

The Sooners added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth on an RBI single by Buechele, and Seng closed things out in the ninth to earn his first save of the season.

The victory marked OU’s closest game this season and came on the heels of the Sooners winning their two previous games by a combined total of 31 runs. The two teams will continue their three-game series at noon Saturday.